Hamptons Heartbreak: A Sizzling Summer Romance (A New York City Romance Book 4)

by Tara Leigh

“Honestly, I don’t know any of them. I’m kind of a last-minute replacement, too. A girl from my building asked if I’d take her place because she’s moving out of state with her boyfriend.”

  I grimace. “Yesterday, I had one of those.”

  “No. You had Richard.” She points at the crease that’s taken up residence between my brows. “And he is not worth getting wrinkles over. Anyway, I’ve seen pictures of the house, and it’s stunning. Seriously, it’s almost too good to be true.”

  I look at her quizzically. “Almost too good to be true, or actually too good to be true?”

  “Almost too good to be true,” she says more firmly. “But I’ll know for sure tomorrow morning.”

  “What’s tomorrow morning?”

  “Saturday. As in, the Saturday before Memorial Day—otherwise known as the official start of summer in the Hamptons. Which, I’ll have you know, lasts precisely one hundred days. You’ll have until Labor Day to figure things out. What do you say—will you come with me?”

  Just then, I hear my mother’s laughter ring out over the din of her guests, and I watch as she puts her arms around my father, gazing up at him adoringly—like she can’t imagine being with anyone else, even after all these years.

  The look he gives her is just as besotted.

  My parents, the perfect couple.

  Another lie.

  My parents’ marriage isn’t perfect. Not by a long shot.

  I can’t stay here for an entire summer. I’m not even sure I can make it through the night.

  I lift my glass, my voice trembling as much as my hand. “Looks like I’m spending my summer in the Hamptons, after all.”

  Chapter 2

  Lance

  62 DAYS UNTIL LABOR DAY

  I am so sick of putting out fires.

  Metaphorically, of course.

  Along with my oldest friend, Tripp Montgomery, I own the most elite cyber-security company in the world. Every day is an exercise in persistence, with one issue after another requiring our immediate and unconditional attention.

  And I am burned out. When we sold the consumer finance portion of RiskTaker a couple of years ago, it was a career high. But meanwhile, my personal life was a damn train wreck. I decided to travel the world, follow through on my childhood dream of climbing Mt. Everest. Why not? I had more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes.

  So I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro as the first step toward training for an Everest summit . . . and I was fucking bored. Sure, the hour or so I stood at the top of the mountain was incredible. But the days I spent getting there, and then getting down, were painfully monotonous. It was mostly looking at the sky and listening to weather reports, then bitching about both with the other climbers in my group.

  And although Everest would be significantly more challenging than Kilimanjaro, I realized my heart wasn’t in it. I needed a different kind of challenge. Or maybe I just needed to do something that actually mattered.

  So Tripp and I started a nonprofit, helping kids get their shit figured out—not our official mission statement, of course. But that’s the gist of it.

  Our pilot program in New York City teaches at-risk and inner-city youth the building blocks of financial stability—budgeting, saving, and investing. It’s been a huge success and we’re hoping to expand nationwide. Which requires not just a ton of money, but a network of wealthy and well-connected people supporting it. Politicians, CEOs, socialites looking for a good cause to champion.

  Which is why I left Silicon Valley for Southampton this morning, and am now pulling up in front of a house I bought several months ago, when Tripp and I decided to spend this summer putting our plans into action.

  Home sweet home.

  Kind of.

  Technically, I grew up in the Hamptons. Hampton Bays, that is. Otherwise known as the armpit of the East End.

  What? You think it’s all waterfront mansions, private beaches, and priceless views out here? Don’t kid yourself. There are plenty of have-nots scattered among the haves, believe me.

  It’s almost fitting. Returning to the Hamptons after so much time away. Not to the kind of rundown ranch I grew up in, but to a multimillion-dollar estate in an exclusive enclave of other multimillion-dollar estates.

  I am no longer a have-not.

  Then again, I know how quickly it can all just . . . slip away. Life. Money. Reputation. Everything.

  I had a front row seat as Tripp went from the Prince of Park Avenue to a couch-surfing pauper. An exiled outcast. No surprise, really. Not after his father was revealed to be the largest con artist since Bernie Madoff.

  I didn’t have it quite as bad. Sure, my stepfather lost most of his fortune in the scam and could no longer pay my college tuition. But I’d only been plucked from Hampton Bays a few years before, after my father died and my mother couldn’t pretend I didn’t exist anymore. I went from having nothing, to having more than I ever imagined, to having nothing again.

  But I never wanted my stepfather’s money, and it was pretty obvious my mother never wanted me. So I got a scholarship to Stanford and took off for the West Coast, which is where I met up with Tripp again. Our experience became the springboard for our success. RiskTaker turned us into billionaires.

  Nearly two years ago, Tripp came back to New York to slay his demons, and he found something more precious. A family. His family.

  And now I’ve come back East, too. Sometimes you can’t move forward until you go back to the beginning.

  Not that I expect to find any family here. I know for a fact my high school girlfriend isn’t hiding a secret daughter from me. My mom is on husband number four, I think, and I can’t remember the last time we even spoke. My dad’s dead. And so is my stepsister, the only family I’ve ever cared about.

  She’s the reason I’m showing up now, instead of Memorial Day weekend as planned. Nothing can bring her back, but I’d be damned if her murderer didn’t see my face every day of his trial. If the judge didn’t hear my voice before handing down his sentence. Life imprisonment, no possibility of parole. I’m not happy. Krista is still gone, after all. But I am relieved. And now, I just want to have a quiet, peaceful summer and focus on expanding RiskTaker’s program to other cities across the country.

  I push the key into the lock, realizing that I forgot to call the real estate agent who said he’d look after the house for me while I was in California. I could have asked him to make sure the electricity was on, the air-conditioning was running, and there was a six-pack of beer in the fridge. But I didn’t, so I resign myself to dealing with a dark, stuffy house and an empty fridge.

  But when I open the door . . . the lights are on and cool air slaps me in the face.

  What the fuck?

  My head swivels as I look around. The kitchen countertops are littered with bags of chips, plastic cups, beer cans, sunscreen, and liquor bottles. In the living room, a sectional couch with stained, sagging pillows faces a flat screen TV. A Ping-Pong table sits in front of the sliding doors, KEEP CLOSED! scrawled in black marker on a piece of paper taped to the glass. And outside, a partially-deflated, sunglass-wearing yellow rubber duckie drifts across the surface of the pool, deck chairs haphazardly arranged around the edge.

  I drop my suitcase, my mind churning as I spin in a slow circle. “Hello?” Am I in the wrong house?

  But no—my key fit perfectly in the lock. The address is the same one written on my deed and property transfer contract. And the house itself looks exactly as I remember from my walk-through a couple of months ago. Well, except for the food and frat-house furniture.

  And Ping-Pong table. Jesus Fucking Christ.

  I jog up the stairs, pissed as hell, but not at all surprised to find a bed in my bedroom.

  Continuing down the hall, I discover that there’s a bed, or two, in every room.

  I’m just pulling my phone out of my pocket, ready to file a police report, when my nose twitches with a familiar—and entirely unwelcome—scent. Smoke, acrid and earthy. Someth
ing is burning.

  Not a cigarette or cigar. Not whatever people grill on their damn barbecues out here.

  Fire. And not the metaphorical variety.

  My heart rate picks up. It can’t be coming from downstairs; I was just there. But it smells . . . close.

  Lunging across the room, I peer through the windows that take up almost two entire walls. One looking over the backyard with its pool and ocean view. Water, no fire. I turn to the other set of windows, the ones facing the side yard and my neighbor—another multimillion-dollar, gray-shingled beach house. My eye snags on something I definitely didn’t expect to see.

  A woman in a fire-engine-red bikini.

  Standing over a burning bush.

  Barely twenty feet from my house, on my property.

  Racing downstairs and out the back door, I sprint the length of the flagstone patio and into the side yard, coming to a stop just a few feet behind her. “What the hell are you doing?”

  She doesn’t turn around.

  “Hey!” I outstretch my arm, the tips of my fingers just grazing the curve of her shoulder.

  An ear-curdling scream pierces the air as she spins, and I have only the quickest impression of doe eyes widened in fear, an upturned nose, and an open pink pout of a mouth before she begins stumbling backward.

  Directly in the path of the enflamed tree.

  Instinct takes over as I grab her by the wrist and haul her toward me. I have at least a hundred pounds and half a foot on her, and she flies forward, landing against my chest with a shocked, “Oof,” that at least puts an end to her scream.

  And for a moment, the sizzle of the fire, the hum of the air-conditioning unit, the squawk of the birds circling overhead, the crash of the nearby waves—it all fades into nothing.

  There is only the sound of my breath, the thrum of my heartbeat. And the lush curves and smooth skin of a stranger.

  I come to my senses just as she jerks away from me, stepping to the side this time. Away from the fire. Away from me.

  Those fierce green eyes that were open so widely just a second ago narrow, glinting at me with a mixture of anger and aggravation. She pulls a pair of earbuds from her ears. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Her voice is a throaty rasp, nothing at all like her high-pitched scream. My dick gives an unwarranted and completely inappropriate pulse of appreciation that I ignore. “Me? Are you crazy? What are you doing?”

  Her brows draw together, and she glances behind her. “Not that it’s any of your business, but that shrub has a fungus. The only way to ensure it doesn’t spread is to destroy the entire thing. Better one dead plant than a dozen.”

  I blink, unconvinced. “You don’t exactly look like a landscaper,” I shoot back, gesturing at her barely-clad body.

  Her cheeks, already flushed, turn a deeper shade of pink. “And you definitely aren’t someone I need to explain myself to.”

  A few seconds pass, the air between us crackling more loudly than the flaming branches.

  She breaks our stare first, bending down to retrieve the coiled water hose I hadn’t noticed and aiming it at the now blackened husk of vegetation. The flames disappear almost immediately, though she continues to soak the ground and every plant and blade of grass within a ten-foot radius.

  But my attention isn’t on the landscape. The girl’s hair is lifted off her shoulders in a messy knot, exposing the bow at her neck. One pull and—

  Shit. This chick is a goddamn arsonist. I don’t want her naked. I want her gone.

  After several minutes, she turns back to me. “You’re still here?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She rolls her eyes and walks toward the house, putting one hand on the siding and bending down. Her ass is full and firm and fucking perfect, and only partially concealed by the tiny triangle of fabric I could rip off with my teeth. The hiss of water stops, and she stands up again, coiling the now dry hose around her arm before looping it over a metal hook extending from the house.

  “Who are you?” I finally ask.

  “You first.”

  Unfuckingbelievable. “This is my house.”

  She frowns. “Seth didn’t mention anyone new coming this week.”

  Seth. The real estate agent that offered to keep an eye on my house while I was living in California. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on, but I’m starting to have an idea. “Don’t worry, Seth and I will be speaking very soon.”

  What I really want to know is: how is this bikini-clad beauty involved?

  She strides past me. “Well, you can’t stay here unless I hear from him.”

  “Who are you?” I ask again.

  She stops at the open door and spins. “Apparently, the first person to suggest you learn to shut the door.” She shakes her head, escaped tendrils of hair framing her face like red corn silk. “Don’t you see the sign? There’s no need to air-condition the yard.” With a huff, she steps inside, closing the door firmly behind her.

  I wrench it open. “We’re not through talking.”

  She lifts a glass of water from the kitchen table and takes a sip. “We are if you don’t close the door.”

  Who the hell is this woman treating my house like it’s her own? “Do you live here?”

  Her hand flutters to her neck in feigned surprise. “What gave me away?”

  “Look, I don’t know what kind of scam you and Seth are running—”

  “Scam?” She practically spits the word. “Listen, if you think you’re going to threaten me into letting you move in here without paying your share—”

  “My share?”

  “Seth handles the money. I just take care of the house.”

  The fuck. “Since when?”

  “Since Memorial Day weekend.”

  Everything finally comes together. “This is a share house?”

  “Yes.” She puts her glass down on the table and rests a hand on her hip. “And Seth hasn’t mentioned anyone new, especially not someone planning to stay during the week.”

  An unexpected burst of laughter escapes my mouth. “Change of plans, sweetheart. You’re fired. This is my house—and I don’t intend to share it. With anyone.”

  “I’m not your sweetheart.” The redhead isn’t backing down an inch. “And thanks, but I’ll wait to hear from Seth.”

  I’ve never been faced with this particular dilemma: kicking a gorgeous woman out of my house. “Do I need to call the police?”

  She doesn’t blink. “Do I?”

  We’re engaged in a standoff when a chiming sound comes from further inside the house. “You know what—do whatever you want. But I have work to do.”

  She walks away from me, and it’s impossible not to admire, again, the ass that fills out her bikini. An ass with the perfect amount of jiggle, just enough that I can imagine exactly how it would look when I—

  Fuck. Get it together, Lance.

  Again, I find myself chasing after her. “We’re not through.” The wood floor feels sticky beneath my feet, making a squelching noise with each step. “And what the fuck is wrong with the floor?”

  I find her in the laundry room, moving a load of sheets from washer to dryer. “Beer, probably. She blows hair out of her face and spins the dial on the machine, turning it on. “There was a Beer-Pong tournament that lasted most of Sunday.”

  “A Beer-Pong tournament?”

  “Look. It’s the day after a three-day weekend, okay. I’ve spent all morning cleaning the pool, picking up whatever didn’t make it into the garbage and recycling bins, stripping the beds, and washing the sheets. If you showed up later, I would have already mopped the floors, but I haven’t gotten to them yet.”

  “So, let me get this straight. Every weekend, this house gets destroyed by whoever bought shares from Seth. Then, they leave, and you spend all day getting the house back in order for them to destroy it again the following weekend?”

  “Well, things are a little worse today than after a typical weekend. But there
are seven bedrooms and six bathrooms. Sometimes, it takes more than just one day to get everything back in order.”

  “And what exactly does Seth do?”

  “He collects the share fees and checks in with me once or twice a week. If there are problems I can’t handle—”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Electrical issues. Plumbing problems beyond a clogged toilet.”

  “He doesn’t pay you?”

  “No. I take care of the house in exchange for free rent.”

  “Until when?”

  “Labor Day.”

  “What happens after that?”

  She shrugs. “I guess I’ll be homeless again.”

  “Homeless?” Somehow, I can’t imagine this curvy redhead sleeping on park benches.

  “It’s a long story.” She picks up the laundry bin and edges around me. “If you want to hear it, you’ll have to help me make the beds.”

  I’m halfway up the stairs when my phone vibrates inside my pocket. “You soaking up the Hamptons’ sunshine yet?” Tripp chirps. He bought a place less than a mile away after his second child was born.

  “Yeah, just got here,” I reply, heading back down the stairs and returning to the patio. I sit down in one of the chairs flanking the pool, noting that the duck’s tail is dragging in the water rather than pointing toward the sky. It won’t be long before it’s just a piece of plastic to be fished out and thrown away before it obstructs the gutters.

  “How’s the house? Do you need someone to help make it livable? I can—”

  I bite back an exasperated groan. During the trial, even from three thousand miles away, Tristan had hovered over me. Now that I’m practically in his backyard, he’s going to drive me nuts. “No worries. It’s all taken care of.”

  “Good. Hey, why don’t you come over? Jolie’s friend Eva is out for the week. You should really meet her—”

  “For fuck’s sake, Tripp. Enough.”

  “What?” he asks innocently. “That monster is in jail, where he belongs, never to tastes freedom or hurt anyone else ever again. It’s time you started living again.”